The BBC World Service (BBCWS) announced on its website that the
remaining BBCWS shortwave transmissions to Europe would close as of
February 18, 2008. The BBC said the change was in line with listener
trends in radio. Increasing numbers of people around the world are
choosing to listen to radio on a range of other platforms, including FM,
satellite, and on line, with fewer listening on shortwave. This is
particularly the case in Europe, where the majority of shortwave
transmissions ceased in March 2007. The current closures affect the
remaining transmissions heard in southern Europe. Frequencies for
western Russia remain, however, and listeners in southeastern Europe may
be able to pick up frequencies for the Middle East when atmospheric
conditions permit. BBC DRM digital shortwave transmissions to Europe
will continue for the time being.

Special Swiss Radio Station To
Operate For Euro 2008

A special radio station will operate in June aimed at uniting football
fans from all the countries participating in the Euro 2008 tournament.
Radio 11 will run only during the competition, offering a diverse mix of
music from the 16 nations and tips for supporters on where to go and
what to do while in Switzerland. The station’s “Rhythm of Football”
motto hopes to set the tone among fans attending the European
championship, co-hosted by Switzerland and Austria from June 7 to 29.
Radio 11 will be broadcast mainly in English, French, and German, but
also in other languages on match days. The music selection will also
reflect whichever countries are playing on particular days. The music
content was be available online as of the middle of February, but the
radio frequencies beginning in June in the host cities of Zurich, Bern,
Basel, and Geneva are not yet decided.

Radio Sweden To End German Service

Radio Sweden has confirmed that its German service, which has been on
the air for 69 years, would close at the end of March. Within
international broadcasting, some languages, including German, have had a
breakthrough on the Web and through podcasting, but the number of
listeners, especially on shortwave, has dropped dramatically in recent
years. This development figured in Swedish Radio management’s decision
of to suspend German broadcasts on shortwave and mediumwave. However, SR
International will retain German for a basic service of news on the Web
and as a Monday to Friday podcast.

Sixty-five percent of 200 public safety officials and first responders
cited the ability to respond to natural disasters as their top concern
in a nationwide survey conducted jointly by the Association of
Public-Safety Communications Officials and Motorola. It dwarfed other
concerns, which included “drug related crimes” (11 percent), “non-drug
related crimes” (10 percent), and “terrorist attacks” (7 percent).
The survey also revealed that regarding “interest in new technology,” 47
percent of those surveyed have interest in “satellite tracking
technology,” followed by “automatic license plate recognition” (41
percent), and “facial recognition technology” (37 percent).
In the area designated “importance of communications technology,” the
survey found that “the importance of technology specific to
communication is underscored by the officials’ funding priorities. Given
a hypothetical funding increase for their departments, public safety
officials on average would spend more of the money on communication
technology [than] on additional training, and nearly as much as on
additional personnel.” “Additional first responders” ranked greatest
with 29 percent, followed by “communications technology” (27 percent),
“first responder training” (25 percent), and “computer equipment” (18
percent).
“While better communications was the popular choice (19 percent) as the
greatest benefit of advanced technology, it was also seen as the area in
greatest need of improvement, cited by 30 percent of respondents,”
officials said. “Our whole police department is dependent on wireless
communications with laptops. We wouldn’t be able to operate if it wasn’t
for that,” said Mike Helms, Director of Sports Services and Police
Technology for West Melbourne, Florida.
APCO and Motorola reported that the “survey included fire and police
personnel, EMTs and government officials in urban, suburban, and rural
areas, providing a snapshot of needs for a cross-section of America.”
The APCO website can be visited at www.apcointl.org/.

FCC Questions California
Radio Amateur’s Character

A California radio amateur has been issued a Hearing Designation Order
by the FCC “to determine if his application for renewal of his amateur
radio license should be granted.”
William F. Crowell, W6WBJ, of Diamond Springs, is alleged to have
“apparently willfully and repeatedly engaged in and continues to engage
in unlawful Commission-related activities, including, but not limited
to, intentionally causing interference and/or interruption, transmitting
music and one-way communications, and using indecent language on amateur
frequencies.” Crowell previously held the callsign N6AYJ.

There’s Heightened Concern About International Boundaries,
Especially On
Our Southern One—And You Can Listen In

by Mitch Gill, NA7US

For a country the size of the United States, the task of effectively
monitoring the borders has always been formidable, but it has taken on a
new urgency as terrorism and illegal immigration have become a top
priority for our nation. Because of that, the activity level along the
borders, especially the one shared with Mexico, has escalated as U.S.
Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers and agents
attempt to prevent illegal aliens, drug smugglers, and terrorists from
crossing into the United States.

Communications, naturally, plays a huge role in their efforts to keep us
safe. For the hobbyist, this means an even greater chance to catch some
of the action. Patience and perseverance are key here, because the CBP,
like most agencies, is moving toward secure communications. But don’t
worry, there are still ample opportunities to listen in on frequencies
that are non-secure. We’ll present some frequencies to listen to, but
first let’s look at a little history.

Borders Tighten

When our nation began, there was no concern about controlling the
borders, and people freely flowed in and out from Canada and Mexico. In
terms of immigration, at least, international boundaries barely existed.

That openness changed dramatically in 1882 with the Chinese Exclusion
Act. At that time in our history, many people believed that the legal
immigration of inexpensive Chinese labor was taking jobs away from
Americans. In response, Congress decided to limit immigration, reducing
it to a fraction of what it had been. This led to immigrants crossing
into the country illegally, creating the need for border security.

It was not until 1904, however, when inspectors, usually referred to as
“mounted guards,” began patrolling the border from Texas to California.
With only about 75 inspectors, this effort’s effectiveness was limited.
In March 1915, Congress officially authorized the inspectors. Their
primary job was to stem the flow of illegal Chinese immigrants, but they
were also tasked with stopping all illegal aliens, as well as drugs,
from reaching our borders. At times the military and the Texas Rangers
were called in to assist. Their efforts were somewhat more effective.

On May 28, 1924, the Border Patrol was founded under the Department of
Labor. Its mission was to prevent illegal entries into the United States
along the Mexican border. In 1925 that mission expanded to include
patrolling our coastline, and the Border Patrol increased to 450
officers.

Between 1932 and the end of WWII the service burgeoned to about 1,400
agents, who watched the Mexican and Canadian land borders as well as the
coasts. During the war, agents provided even tighter control of the
borders, assisting the U.S. Coast Guard in searching for saboteurs and
also manning alien detention camps. Around that time, aircraft became an
important tool of the monitoring operations, as did radio
communications.

By the late 1950s private aircraft were being used to smuggle in illegal
aliens, and with the assistance of other federal agencies, the Border
Patrol began monitoring flights into the country in an effort to stem
the tide. During the Kennedy administration, aircraft hijackings entered
the news, and the President ordered the Border Patrol to provide agents
to fly with domestic flights as a preventative measure.

The 1980s and 1990s saw a huge surge in illegal immigration. To meet the
challenge, the Border Patrol quickly increased its manpower and began
implementing more modern technology, including night vision goggles,
upgraded computers, seismic sensors, and more effective radio equipment.
Radio repeaters were placed on high hills to increase the range of
handheld radios from five to 10 miles up to 100 miles.

In 1993, in an effort to gain more control of the border, operation
“Hold the Line” was initiated in El Paso, Texas. Thanks in part to the
new technological tools, Hold the Line was so successful that a similar
measure, called “Gatekeeper,” was put in place on the San Diego border,
where half the illegal entries were occurring. Within a few years
illegal immigration was reduced by 75 percent in many areas and a
national strategic plan was formed. As the borders became more
controllable, agents were able to concentrate more on anti-smuggling and
search and rescue efforts, such as BORSTAR (Border Patrol Search,
Trauma, and Rescue).

During The Mexican Revolution, Radio Interceptors Helped Protect Our
National Interests

by R.B. Sturtevant, AD7IL

Back in 1911 a fellow named Porfirio Diaz was worried about his job
performance reports. He’d held his job, Dictator of Mexico, since 1876.
Well, actually he’d run for president twice and been beaten twice, then
he just took over. He’d done a lot of good for the country by building
roads, railroads, and telegraph systems. He’d also saved a lot of time
and money by doing away with the expenses and tedium of elections and a
judicial system.

He had avoided political opposition by repressive use of the military
and secret agents who divided the people into smaller and smaller
political groups. But people were getting tired of all this oppressive
government, and some muttered that Porfirio might want to retire.
Porfirio knew that one of the ceremonies for retiring heads of the
Mexican government often involved a stone wall and a 21 gun salute,
fired just south of the collarbone. Porfirio, instead, decided to take a
trip out of the country, work on his memoirs, and continue breathing.

The power vacuum created when Porfirio left was filled soon enough by
Francisco Madero, a reformer with wide political support. Madero took
over the Presidency in 1911 but almost immediately had a falling out
with most of his major supporters. He was assassinated in 1912. So much
for wide political support.

This new power vacuum left Mexico torn between four major groups. One
was headed by Emiliano Zapata, who favored land reform; one by General
Victoriano Huerta, a professional military officer who favored a
military dictatorship; another by Venustiano Carranza, a strong
Constitutionalist; and the last by Pancho Villa, who had the northern
bandit vote locked up. Soon, more groups formed or broke off, leaving
Mexico with quite a civil war on its hands.

Turmoil On The Border

Meanwhile, in Europe, Kaiser Wilhelm was planning some military
adventures of his own. He’d “helped out” with things in Latin America,
sending “advisors,” money, and weapons to assist Spain in the Spanish
American War and saw no reason Germany should stop. Kaiser Bill had some
plans of his own and wanted America occupied while he played takeover in
Europe. So a large number of German “Reserve Officers” were dispatched
to Mexico to attach themselves to the different
revolutionary groups. Each group was separately wooed as
the “Hope of the New Mexico” and promised funds, weapons, and advisors.

The Germans’ aim was to create unrest on America’s southern border to
keep the country out of European affairs. Border incidents were staged
to show the Americanos just how vulnerable they were. American interests
in Mexico were threatened or seized, Pancho Villa raided Columbus, New
Mexico, in March 1915, and five American soldiers were killed in Nogales
by Mexican troops in 1918.

The Germans didn’t really care who ran things in Mexico as long as the
Americans were kept busy. In 1915, the guy who was running things, more
or less, in Mexico was Carranza.

Carranza represented the educated and politically powerful interests who
wanted a strong Constitution. He also wanted Mexico to have a place on
the world stage. He was listening coyly to what the Germans were saying
while making his own plans. It was to Carranza that the famous Zimmerman
Telegram was sent offering German assistance in a Mexican invasion of
the United States. It was also to the Carranza government that Germany’s
powerful transmitters aimed coded diplomatic traffic. Mexico, lacking
such powerful transmitters, sent back messages that were picked up by
U-boats in the Gulf of Mexico for retransmission.

Q. What were some of the best jobs for radio operators on ships at sea?

A. In the 1960s the primo job for a ham radio operator was being the guy
who ran the Radio Shack on the USS Hope, the hospital ship that traveled
all over the world teaching local medical professionals the latest and
greatest in new techniques and procedures. Typically, local telephones
from foreign countries were costly and undependable, and the ship’s
staff of around 140 could only contact home via amateur shortwave bands.
When the ship’s station hit the air there was always an answer. And the
radio operator was paid the same as the doctors and nurses—food,
housing, and transportation. Everyone aboard the Hope was a volunteer.
Q. Did Radio play any part in sinking the Bismarck?

A. The problem with finding one ship, even the largest ship afloat, in a
large ocean is that there are so many places to hide. But radio
direction finding was turning into a major effort in the search for
Hitler’s battleships, which were sent out to control shipping across the
Atlantic. On May 1, 1941, the Bismarck put out to sea. She was found
later that same month and attacked by the British Navy, but the battle
ended with the Germans sinking the British battle cruiser Hood and
damaging the battleship Prince of Wales. The question now was could the
Bismarck be sunk?

Not seriously wounded during the engagement, the Bismarck did however
suffer an oil leak and was losing fuel. Radio intercept work and code
breaking soon told the British where their quarry was headed. On May 26
an obsolete Swordfish torpedo plane dropped a torpedo and crippled the
Bismarck by destroying her rudders. The torpedo, really a near miss,
caused the Bismarck to steam in a circle. The Germans soon ran out of
ammunition and were
sunk by repeated attacks by British air and naval forces.

While the planes, torpedoes, and gunnery involved sank the Bismarck, it
was the skill of radio operators that found her and kept her in their
sights until she could be sunk. The Bismarck’s last message was also
picked up by British intercept operators: it was, “Torpedo hit right
aft. Ship unmanageable. We fight to the last shell. Long live the
Fuhrer.” The famed German vessel went under on May 27.

Q. What was it like to be a ham in the Soviet Union during the Cold War?

A. In 1965 an American ham working for the U.S. Information Agency
visited the Soviet Union to help show off American consumer electronics.
His particular job was to operate an American-style ham shack and talk
to Soviet hams. He met about 2,000 hams and visited many of their
shacks. He found that most of them were using military surplus receivers
of fairly recent vintage, but that the transmitters, antennas, and keys
were all homebrew. The transmitters could operate CW or phone, and many
had SSB capability. Training was available widely but the exams were
oral and not standardized across the country.

Apparently, the biggest problem Soviet hams faced was television
interference. This was because Soviet TVs were built without high-pass
filters. Unless a ham could prove that his rig was TVI-free he could not
operate after 6 p.m. weekdays or after noon on Sunday until midnight,
when the TV stations went off the air.

With The Fate Of The Caribbean Nation Uncertain, The Waning Days Of
The
Castro Regime May Be Your Last Chance To Log
A Bit Of History

By Gerry L. Dexter

Might you be in the
market for a circa-1950 automobile to show off at classic car rallies?
If so, you could probably pick one up for a song from a Cuban cab
driver, ’cause old Fords and Chevys are the limping motorized transport
around decaying Havana.

Although set to some fabulous music, daily life in Cuba is an unhappy
challenge. If you’re lucky enough to have a job you can’t change it
without government approval. The much-touted free medical system lacks
everything but patients, which it can’t treat anyway. Just about every
facet of life in Cuba today could be described as old, decrepit,
forlorn, bereft, desolate, and any of a half dozen other negatives you
care to toss in. That applies even—or especially—to Fidel Castro.

Every week or so new rumors of his imminent departure to his reward take
wing around Miami and other Cuban population centers in the U.S. So far
(as of this writing), they’ve been false alarms. The 82-year old
Commandante, has been trying to recapture his health for going on two
years now and recently did the heretofore unthinkable: he stepped down
as Cuba’s “president” in favor of brother Raul. And smiles were seen all
along Interstate 95. (Of course, by the time these words reach print,
events may have already unfolded dramatically!)

As his declining health could no longer be ignored, a couple of years
ago Castro turned most responsibilities over to his then-77-year old
brother. Some find slight hope for the future in this, believing that
Raul is more pragmatic and reasonable than his older brother. This view
holds that Cuba might one day take up the China model; that is, retain
an authoritarian regime but don a capitalist coat, as Beijing has done.
Others say that Raul is just another murderer who will keep the guns
loaded and the padlocks on. Other analysts suggest a military coup might
be in the offing. Obviously, no one really knows for certain, and in the
meantime the Miami exile community waits expectantly, and hopes for the
best.

Radio In Cuba, Then…

Radio has certainly had its role in the unending campaign to oust, or at
least subvert, the brothers Castro. During the Cuban revolution the
Castro forces used a 120-watt amateur transmitter to get their Radio
Rebelde on the air. Once the revolutionaries took power the radio
station was made legitimate and today is the “other” Cuban shortwave
broadcaster, after Radio Havana.

In the early 1960s, as part of the lead up to the Bay of Pigs invasion,
we had the infamous CIA-run Radio Swan (later Americas) broadcasting to
Cuba from Swan Island. It was later joined by Radio Libertad, “La Voz
Anti-Communista de America”—also of suspect parentage—which was
eventually found to be broadcasting from a highly secured installation
near Caracas, Venezuela. (Today’s Hugo Chavez regime probably wouldn’t
care to be reminded of that historical embarrassment.)

By the early 1980s there were several anti-Castro broadcasters of a more
or less amateur nature operating sporadically in the lower part of 7
MHz. Radio Abdala, La Voz de Alpha 66, Radio Antorcha Martiana (Torch of
Marti) and others would appear and disappear without any discernable
pattern. The groups or individuals sponsoring these broadcasts had
occasional run-ins with the local authorities and were not above
resorting to violence when they believed it would advance their cause.
Those were exciting times to be a shortwave clandestine chaser!

These Recommended Tools Will Help You Get Even More
Out Of Listening In

by Dan Srebnick, K2DLS

Computers and radio work well together—or do
they? Most of us have probably spent time trying to figure out why some
piece of computer equipment in the shack is causing QRM to our favorite
frequency. I’ve gone so far as to power off every computer in the house
in order to bring the noise level down a couple of S units and pull out
that rare DX station. I’ve used lots of ferrite chokes and even changed
PC power supplies to eliminate RF hash caused by some switching power
supplies in computers.
It can be annoying, to say the least, but I can’t imagine not having a
computer in the shack these days. There are just too many useful
software programs and websites that enhance my listening pleasure.
Computer noise suppression in the shack is a science unto itself, but
we’ll talk about that some other time. Today, we’re going to talk about
some of those programs and websites that support your hobby habit.

Tech Tools You Don’t Want
To Be Without

A lot of hams and SWLs bemoan the absence of sunspots, proclaiming the
bands dead for the next couple of years. I’m not so certain I agree with
the part about the bands being dead, but conditions certainly have been
challenging on the shortwaves. What seems to be true, however, is that
the activity moves lower in frequency the quieter the sun gets. While
much has been written about the 11-year sunspot cycle and its effect on
radio communication on HF, a picture is worth and thousand words and I
have the picture, thanks to www.spaceweather.com (see Figure 1).

This is a terrific website. I look at it daily, mostly to see at a
glance whether there’s hope of decent propagation on the higher
frequencies. In the left hand column, there is a vivid image of the sun,
showing any sunspots, or the lack thereof, with the current sunspot
number. There’s a good explanation of how the sunspot number is derived
that you can access by clicking on the link under the current number.
Readers contribute photos of interesting occurrences, such as unique
auroral conditions visible at their locations. Other useful information
presented on the site includes dates of upcoming meteor showers, in case
you’d like to work some meteor scatter using the weak signal software
from WSJT.

Software: VOACAP and VOAProp

One great program that will help you figure out what you can hear and
when
is VOAProp (www.g4ilo.com/voaprop. html). VOAProp was written by Julian
Moss, G4ILO, and has often come up in the pages of Pop’Comm. It makes
use of the VOACAP propagation prediction library, but puts a nice
graphical interface on top of it. It has a mode for SWLs and one for
hams, with the main difference being the transmitter power levels and
bands for each community of users. The GUI (graphical user interface)
also clearly shows the grayline at any given time, revealing
opportunities for extraordinary DX conditions. The software runs under
both Windows and Linux, and ran just fine under Vista. The required
VOACAP program can also be downloaded by the VOAProp installation
program. If this sounds a little complicated, it really isn’t and the
end result is well worth it.

We have several times now bemoaned the seeming
disinclination of the Voice of America to put much time or effort or
funds into its declining broadcast infrastructure. Evidence of said: the
closing of the Bethany (Ohio) site several years ago and, more recently,
the Dixon (California) facility, followed by turning over the Briech,
Morocco, site to the government there, not to mention the lack of
attention given the giant Greenville (North Carolina) facility, which is
beginning to show its age. But now there has been a bit of a turnabout.

The VOA has awarded a large contract to the
Harris Corporation to modernize the Voice’s broadcast headquarters, an
undertaking that will include new automation, new master and quality
control, and updating playback and recording systems. In reality, the
headquarters upgrade likely has no bearing on what’s going on at tower
sites, but it’s still tempting to hope that, maybe, this indicates the
start of a new way of thinking.

The VOA has also announced that its “Radio Aap
Ki Duniya” Urdu service has ended shortwave transmissions and now uses
only two channels on mediumwave. It seems like only a year or so ago
that this service went on the air in response to some perceived urgent
need.

BBC shortwave to Europe is no more. What’s
next? America? Oh wait—I seem to remember there was something in the
paper a couple of years back about that…
Now there are rumors—not much more than simple scuttlebutt at this
point—that Radio Tirana may be discontinuing shortwave before long in
favor of “broadcasts” on the Web, which are much cheaper. Let’s hope
that doesn’t happen. As always I suggest writing to the station to show
your support. The snail mail address is Ruga Ismail Qemali No. 11,
Tirana, or you can email them at
radiotirana-english@hotmail.com.

Radio Prague is once again being relayed over
WRMI-Miami, for a full half-hour per week! It airs Saturdays at 0000 on
9955.

Israel was all set to pull the plug on its
shortwave broadcasts effective with the arrival of the New Year. But,
once again, the programs were granted a three-month delay. It’s anyone’s
guess as to what their status may be as you read this.

Radio Ukraine International is active again
from the site at Lvov, using 7440 at 0000 to 0100 in Ukrainian and 0400
to 0500 in English.
That’s it for this month’s shortwave gazette—now it’s over to you.

Reader Logs

Remember, your shortwave broadcast station
logs are always welcome. But please be sure to double or triple space
between the items, list each logging by the station’s home country, and
include your last name and state abbreviation after each. Also needed
are spare QSLs or good copies you don’t need returned, station
schedules, brochures, pennants, station photos, and anything else you
think would be of interest. And how about sending a photo of you at your
listening post? It’s your turn to grace these pages!

Here are this month’s logs. All times are in
UTC. Double capital letters are language abbreviations (SS = Spanish, RR
= Russian, AA = Arabic, etc.). If no language is mentioned English (EE)
is assumed.

ALASKA—KNLS, 7355 opening in CC heard at 1400.
(Barton, AZ)

ALBANIA—Radio Tirana, 6120 at 0245 and 7425
announcing times and frequencies at 0440, (Maxant, WV) 9915-Shijak at
2115 and 13640-Shijak at 1540. (Charlton, ON)

As the technology involved becomes more
complicated, scanner listeners are faced with a need to understand
trunking, digital, and a whole lot of other radio systems. If you’re new
to scanning, this can be somewhat daunting as it’s a lot of information
to process all at once, and in some cases, until you understand all of
it, your scanner won’t work correctly. Let’s see if we can demystify
some of the technology and help you understand why it works the way it
does (when it does work).

“Conventional” Radio

We’re all familiar with the concept of
channels. If you want to watch TV you tune to a certain channel; to
listen to the radio you tune to a favorite station’s “channel,” or
frequency, to listen to it. The difference is that these channels are
used for broadcasting continuous programming, while two-way radio
systems are used as needed, but there are channels involved here, too.

You don’t need to know, or care, what actual
frequencies TV Channel 7 is on, you just know that the news is on at 6.
Two way-radio systems don’t have such convenient schedules, but the
users of those systems don’t really care what actual frequency they’re
on, either...they just need to know that Channel 3 on their radio is the
dispatcher for their district and Channel 8 is the car-to-car channel
for getting doughnuts. Keep that in mind for a few minutes while we
discuss less sophisticated radio systems.

The so-called conventional radio systems
(conventional because it represents the old way?) are just like the TV
channels. Each channel is assigned a fixed frequency, and all the
traffic for that channel takes place on that frequency. The limits are
how many channels you have available versus what kind of divisions the
users of the system need. You may not care if they’re all on the same
channel if there’s only a few, but things get pretty crowded if you’ve
got a large city on a single channel, as New Orleans found out not so
long ago.

I’m certain that if you’ve owned a scanner for
more than five minutes, you probably have a pretty good handle on how
conventional radio systems work. Each channel has a dedicated frequency
(or two) for its use and no other traffic takes place on that channel.
If a car needs to talk to some other unit, there’s a channel switch on
the car radio and that’s a different frequency, much like the TV channel
idea.

Single frequency operation is the simplest
form of this and is referred to as simplex. Only one person can talk at
a time and the other units (and your scanner) can only hear that person,
or car, or whatever talking if they are close enough for the signal to
reach there. Simplex is cheap and easy. In a simplex system, both sides
transmit and receive on the same frequency. This is the simplest type of
radio system and one that is used in many places throughout the country
because of that.

Unfortunately, if the area to be covered is
large, then some of the mobile units won’t be able to hear each other,
and that can be the cause of some safety concerns and can make operation
difficult if the dispatcher has to constantly relay things. If two units
that can’t hear each other transmit at the same time, the dispatcher may
not hear anything but garble. If a mobile unit transmits close to
another mobile unit, the second unit may not hear the dispatcher in the
mess. The solution to that was to put the mobiles on one frequency and
the base station on another. At least the dispatcher would always have a
clear channel to talk on and the mobiles could hear. That solved half
the problem.

With the summer travel season approaching,
vacationers may want to check out the Trackstick II Personal GPS Tracker
from Trackstick.com. The Trackstick records its own location, time,
date, speed, heading, and altitude at preset intervals and, with over
1Mb of memory in a waterproof package, it can store months of travel
information. Use it to keep track of the exact routes you take when
hiking, biking, or any other activity and record the location of
everywhere you travel—you can even import pictures and other information
into Google Earth. A GPX photo-stamping feature lets you add photos to
your own maps.

The Trackstick II receives signals from 24
satellites orbiting the Earth and uses them to precisely calculate its
own position anywhere to an accuracy of within 45 feet. Other
applications include photo tours, public safety, homeland security, law
enforcement, and child safety.

Trackstick II is available through numerous
sources and can be found online for under $200. For more information
visit www.trackstick.com.

CableOrganizer.com Offers “Green” Gadgets

Consumers who want to save the planet—and some
bucks along with it—have a couple of offerings available to them through
CableOrganizer.com.

The company’s Watts Up? electricity meter
provides a convenient way to monitor and project energy costs by
measuring what standard 120-VAC electrical devices will cost to operate,
eliminating the guesswork involved in the price of powering a piece of
equipment over a short or long span of time. The meter quickly displays
the wattage and the electrical usage cost (16 electrical measurements
and values are offered). The Watts Up? meter will also help identify
operational problems, measure line voltage, and diagnose voltage drops.
Included PC software allows memory to be downloaded into charts and
tables.

Another cost-saving gadget, the Kill A Watt
power monitor, also provides an economical way to assess the efficiency
of your electrical appliances. Just plug any 115-volt (maximum 15 Amp)
electric appliance into the Kill A Watt meter and its large LCD display
shows the power consumption of the appliance in killowatt-hours. The
Kill A Watt power monitor can calculate the electricity cost of the
appliance by the day, week, month, or year. If your electric bills are
high, the Kill A Watt power meter can help you pinpoint which electric
appliances are consuming too much power and can monitor the quality of
your power by checking voltage, line frequency, and power factor.
For more information on the Watts Up? ($72.95–$195.95) and Kill A Watt
($29.95) meters, visit
http://cableorganizer.com.

First there were crystal radios, then
one-tube sets, and now there are “ultralights.” Sparked by the
popularity of the Sony SRF-59 AM/FM Walkman, a very capable retrograde
pocket radio, ultralight DXing has ignited an explosion of
experimentation and interest in radio electronics. In this digital age
of endless entertainment options, including cable TV, the Internet, and
wireless phones, the rapid growth of ultralighting is quite remarkable.

Ultralight Defined

“The sudden boom in ultralight radio
interest took everybody by surprise, and the AM DX community is only now
trying to sort out the definitions, and create some guidelines about
this new phenomena,” said Gary DeBock, a Washington State DXer and
ultralight enthusiast, in response to my inquiries about the subject.
“We are still attempting to create an administrative framework that will
give support and direction to the enthusiasts in this new niche of the
AM DX hobby, and not every decision will be without controversy.” DeBock
continued:

DXpedition enthusiasts in particular are
already creating a lively forum of discussion about how these tiny
receivers should be used, and what should be allowed. This is healthy,
in my humble opinion. We have very serious experimentation currently
with antenna transplants into ultralight radios, and one of my own
projects transplanted a 6.25-inch loopstick from a Sony ICF-S5 into an
SRF-39FP ultralight, resulting in a huge boost in sensitivity. It
certainly isn’t a stock ultralight, but is it on a different DXing level
than the Sony ICF-2010, for example? What if we transplant an even
bigger antenna into an ultralight radio, along with filter mods and
other refinements, making it a DXpedition superstar...would it still be
an ultralight? Whether we agree on this or not, that is the direction
that Guy Atkins, John Bryant, and myself are inclined to go.

World-renowned mediumwave DXers Atkins and
Bryant are two co-conspirators at the forefront of the ultralight
movement. Though not an ultralight, the Sony ICF-2010 is a classic
portable communications receiver best known for its unparalleled AM
synchronous detection circuitry. The 2010 was discontinued in 2003, yet
it’s still the reference for comparison of portables to date.
Regarding ultralight experiments, DeBock said:

The “hot-rodded” SRF-39FP already has
sensitivity at least up to the ICF-2010 level, but it is analog and
obviously will not be the first choice of DXpeditioners. We plan to
modify a Sangean DT-200VX to make it a super-sensitive, super-selective
digital wonder, but if we succeed in this, some will obviously question
what kind of animal we have created, and whether it is really an
ultralight. Since there is no judge that can satisfy everybody, the
current scramble seems to be in the direction of making these tiny
radios as competitive as possible for DXpeditions, and letting the AM DX
community sort out the definition concepts later.

The Sangean DT-200VX, like the SRF-39,
SRF-59L and others in the Sony Walkman lineup, has quickly gained
superstar status among ultralight DXers. The “P” version of the SRF-39
was manufactured with a clear plastic chassis for prisoner use. The
clear chassis allowed easy inspection for contraband by prison security.

Ultralight Classifications

What is ultralight DXing? In its most basic
form, ultralighting is done with a pocket radio reminiscent of the
classic transistor radios from years gone by. Consider it an upgrade
from the good old days of DXing with oatmeal-box crystal radios, a
back-to-nature minimalist movement for radio hobbyists, and for some
simply a rekindled youth.

Ahhh, ever since those early days when I spent
a month’s allowance for an old shortwave radio at a garage sale, I’ve
had a soft spot in my heart for them. These days I have about two dozen
radios with at least one shortwave band around the house.

Today I most enjoy prowling the shortwave
bands with my Racal RA6790 (Photo A). Note to Readers: If you have any
experience working on these, drop me an email, mine has picked up an
annoying habit. To enhance my listening experience, I’ve found that a
DSP filter is a handy addition, and external speakers also improve the
sound. (As a quick aside, I used 4-Ohm speakers, so I just wired them in
series to get 8 Ohms. When you parallel or series speakers watch that
+/- on the speaker phasing. If the cone on one is going out while the
cone of the other is pulling back, the sound is pretty strange. This is
a phase condition that just doesn’t occur in nature over a range of
frequencies, so the human ear finds it sort of annoying.)

I guess my second favorite has to be the
RadioShack DX-394 (Photo B) since I have three of them around the house.
If you can work with surface mount components, there are several simple
modifications that improve the background noise and AGC functions on the
DX-394; a simple Internet search will turn up these modifications so I
won’t list them here. Again, an external speaker sounds much smoother
than that little internal speaker. And you can add one of those noise
canceling or DSP audio processors as well. The DX-394 also works well on
an external battery pack, which is very nice in my area since we have
far-too-frequent power failures.

Now, The Antennas

Most of the time I have a ground-mounted
vertical with 300-plus buried radials connected to my Racal. But I also
have two other antennas I can switch in: a 20-foot wire in the attic
that I often find works better than the big one out back, and an active
antenna (but we covered those just a few months ago).
When the shortwave signals bounce between a couple of ionization layers
several times, the angle and polarization of those waves can get pretty
mixed up. So it can get hard to predict what kind of antenna will work
best. A simple solution is shown in the accompanying Figure—just have
several antennas and use the one that “hears” best.
Photo C shows a coax type-N, TV antenna, TV video, and an audio switch
box. All of these switch boxes work fine for switching shortwave
antennas. You don’t need special coax relays just to switch between a
few long-wire antennas. Many of the TV and cable-type antenna/coax
switches use type-F connectors. Type Fs work great on shortwave, and the
75-Ohm connectors and cables have very low loss on these frequencies.
Even video switches work fine for switching your shortwave antennas.
HeathKit used to use RCA plugs as high as 148 MHz, those RCA plugs,
switches and cables are fine on shortwave and up to 30 MHz. A good video
switch must have an excellent SWR to over 6 MHz to carry video without
ghosts.

It’s certainly easy enough to build your own
antenna switch with toggle switches or most any multipole switch. But if
you don’t like to roll your own, a CATV A-B switch, the
DVD/VHS/converter video switch, or even a speaker selection switch can
be used for your shortwave antennas; the frequencies are low, power
levels are low, and impedances are not critical. Let me know how you
make out.

From Our Readers

There were a few comments/questions from our
readers that I’d like to share this month. One was on the topic of
measurements, specifically, mHz, kHz, MHz, and GHz. Let’s do a quick
review.

So you’ve decided to give aviation monitoring
a try and have tracked down sites on the Internet loaded with aviation
frequencies. Did you find yourself a bit vexed looking at those aviation
frequency listings and wondering what all those abbreviations mean? I’m
betting you did, so I’m going to use my first column to address that
right away. We’ll also go over the meaning of classes and look at just
what there is to hear out there. In other words, the basics.

Sites like Airnav.com have excellent frequency
listings for airports all over, but they refer to frequencies and other
aspects of airport operation with some pretty esoteric abbreviations.
You’ve probably said to yourself, “Abbreviations? Those aren’t
abbreviations? They’re code!!!” And in many ways, you’re right. Many of
these abbreviations were developed in the mid-20th Century, and at the
time (and for many years after) the primary means of communication was
via teletype. With bandwidth on the wires being a limited resource, a
message had to be gotten across quickly and in a way that was easy to
understand. Thus, a variety of abbreviations or acronyms was developed
to save bandwidth yet still get the message across. Although teletype is
rarely, if ever, used today, the abbreviations and acronyms have
persisted. It doesn’t make it easy for newcomers to aviation monitoring
to figure out what they’re listening to, though.

To help you along the road to peace,
love, and understanding, we’ve provided a basic primer of abbreviations
and their meanings (see “Common Aviation Abbreviations”).

Aviation Classes

Another listing given for airports is the
airspace class; this is given as CLASS (x), where X is a letter, A
through G. This refers to and gives the frequencies for controlled
airspace at that particular airport. Each airspace classification
carries various requirements for how an aircraft must be equipped and
how flight operations are carried out. The classes are as follows:

Class A—Airspace above 18,000 feet. All flight
conducted using IFR or SVFR, with clearance from ATC. All flights
separated by ATC.

Class B—Flight conducted using IFR, SVFR, or
VFR, with clearance from ATC. All flights separated by ATC.

Class C—Flight conducted using IFR, SVFR, or
VFR, with clearance from ATC. IFR and SVFR flights separated by ATC; VFR
flights maintain separation from other VFR flights with verbal
information from ATC.

Class D—Same as Class C, except VFR flights
maintain separation from all other aircraft with verbal information from
ATC. All aircraft are given information on position of other aircraft.

Class E—Same as Class D, except VFR aircraft
are not subject to ATC clearance. All controlled aircraft are given
information on position of other aircraft when possible.

I’m sure people of every successive generation
have rolled their eyes and wondered mightily about “the youth of the
day.” For example, instead of walking to and from school in Arctic
blizzards, torrential downpours, and searing heat (yes, with buzzards
circling overhead), today’s kids are driven to school in fleets of
armored SUVs helmed by soccer moms gone wild.

And while kids in my generation went outside
in the morning and reluctantly came indoors as late as possible (getting
into ever-increasing mischief the whole while), today’s kids can barely
tear themselves away from whatever game console is the rage. And when
they do manage to go outside, they’re limited by the “carpal thumb”
syndrome caused by chronically mashing buttons on said console’s
handheld controllers.

The same generational transitions happen in
ham radio, too. Spark gave way to continuous wave, AM to SSB, etc. And
nowadays, radioteletype, RTTY, the original two-tone
keyboard-to-keyboard mode, has largely given way to PSK31, the
now-preferred keyboard-to-keyboard mode, which will be 10 years old at
the end of this year.

Although spark transmissions are now
understandably verboten, I know that hams still have occasional AM QSOs
and that RTTY isn’t completely six feet under—especially for
digital-mode contesters—but it has one foot in the grave. And the
equipment we use for RTTY, well, it’s a whole new ball game. A computer
ball game (more on that later).

We’ve come a long way from the clunky
teleprinter machines used by early RTTY ops. Even if you haven’t seen
the gear I’m talking about in a ham shack, you’ve undoubtedly seen it in
older movies about war or broadcasting! Behind a typewriter-looking
keyboard sat a teleprinter with a large continuous roll of low-grade
yellow paper. As the receiver’s analog demodulator converted the
deedle-eedle tones into readable characters, those characters were
impact-printed onto the paper, making a lot of clattering, clunking,
whirring, and clicking noises in the process.

As RTTY hardware improved in the ’70s and
’80s, hams and SWLs started monitoring shortwave RTTY and fax stations
with a variety of equipment, ranging from cheap two-diode PC serial
interfaces to expensive HAL or Universal terminal units.

In the late ’80s, multimode terminal units
from Kantronics and AEA (often dubbed multimode communications
processors, or MCPs, which were used with PCs or “dumb” terminals) were
the rage, pushing aside even the more robust RTTY-only gear made by
companies such as TONO and HAL.

During this time, RTTY itself saw competition
from the various error-correcting “handshaking” modes—AMTOR, packet,
PACTOR, G-TOR, CLOVER, and so on—and I wondered even then whether the
RTTY era was coming to an end. RTTY was still around then, just like
it’s still around today, but it wasn’t exactly the “in” thing unless you
were a ham radio digital-mode contester (still true today, only to a
greater degree).

You may not have noticed it, but recently
certain propagation prediction and modeling software programs (for
instance, ACE-HF) that attempted to obtain the smoothed sunspot number (SSN)
for future dates, no longer were able to complete that function. This
occurred on January 1, 2008, because of the government’s failure to
issue updated predictions for solar cycle activity for 2008 and beyond.

The National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC), a
part of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and
other agencies, has now fixed its SSN listing, allowing the software
functions to work again. This was prompted by the folks at ACE-HF, who
also asked the NGDC to include data back through 1997 from their old
table as well as estimates for Cycle 24, so ACE-HF can now retrieve SSNs
from 1997 through 2018. Figure 1, by the way, is an attractive EIT (for
Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope) depiction of most of a solar
cycle.

The government listing was delayed because of
the difficulty in deciding on the month of the current solar cycle’s
minimum, on which future months’ estimates are based. They have posted
the following “readme” that qualifies the current estimates:

The sunspot prediction file is a PRELIMINARY
look at Cycle 24. Our prediction program required the month and year of
minimum to produce output. Solar minimum for Cycle 24 has not been
officially determined. We used July 2007 as the minimum date to produce
an outlook. Solar minimum will be adjusted monthly until the OFFICIAL
value/month is determined.

Another interesting turn of events regarding
the prediction of Solar Cycle 24 is this statement released by the
International Solar Energy Society (ISES) regarding the Solar Cycle
Progression and Prediction Displays (see Figures 2 and 3):

The initial ISES Solar Cycle 24 Prediction was
released in April, 2007. The panel charged with determining the
prediction was unable to agree on a single solution and have so far
provided two predictions. Those two predictions are available here,
along with an average of the two predictions. The average is currently
being used as the official prediction. The ISES panel does not consider
this to be an adequate solution. To mitigate this, the lower and upper
bounds used with the average cover the range of the two predictions
issued by the panel. When the panel converges on a single prediction,
the files here will be updated to reflect the new prediction. The two
predictions issued by the panel can be accessed in the files named
Predict_low.txt and Predict_high.txt.

Scientists have issued cycle predictions only
twice before. In 1989, a panel met to predict Cycle 22, which peaked
that same year. In September 1996, scientists met again to predict Cycle
23, six months after the cycle had begun. Both groups did a better job
at predicting timing than intensity, according to Space Environment
Center scientist Douglas Biesecker, who chairs the current panel of
experts that came up with last April’s (2007) prediction for Solar Cycle
24. He describes the group’s confidence level as “high” for its estimate
of a March 2008 start month for the new cycle, and “moderate” overall
for the two estimates of peak sunspot number and when those peaks would
occur.

One major disagreement among the current panel
members involves the importance of magnetic fields around the sun’s
poles as Cycle 23 decays. Those who predict a weak Cycle 24 point to the
end-cycle polar fields as the foundation of their forecasting approach.
The strong-cycle forecasters place more importance on other precursors
extending over a several-cycle history. Because Cycle 24 sunspots have
already appeared this year (2008), the strong-cycle group holds that
Cycle 24 will be a moderate to strong cycle.
No one will know for sure until we are well into the solar cycle. What’s
more, scientists need at least one year of new solar cycle data to
really create the curves that allow them to better forecast the rest of
the cycle’s activity levels and the timing of the peak.

If you listen to your scanner and
two-way radio system for hours on end, you can appreciate the external
speaker jack for a big speaker. My ham rig’s original external speaker
was a 12-volt DC-powered Variable Response Console from Alpha Delta
Communications. The big speaker gave me rich audio, and I could power on
the fully adjustable analog equalization network, giving me high boost,
low boost, and a relatively decent null to reduce an annoying
high-frequency heterodyne whistle. It even had a jack for headphones,
allowing me to play with high and low boost knobs for just the right
pitch, without driving everyone else in the radio room nuts!
Each of my scanners had a Motorola speaker box, which certainly gave a
fuller, richer-sounding audio output than did the relatively small
speakers in the scanners themselves.

When I added a similar-type GE speaker to my
2-meter/440-MHz ham set, things sounded fuller, but the rumble of
repeater output CTCSS was a distraction. Even my big Alpha Delta VRS was
not totally effective in rolling off the low CTCSS tones.

It Just Keeps Getting Better

This was 10 years ago, about the same time
that SGC Corporation introduced a marine radio with Advanced Digital
Signal Processing (ADSP) 12-volt powered noise subtraction system. It
was big and bulky and the red, amber, and green LED bar graphs looked
really “gee whiz” in my radio room.
Boy! Did the SGC ADSP audio noise subtraction system work well! On ham
radio, it would take about five seconds to analyze the background noise,
and then slowly reduce it to nearly zero. On the VHF/UHF sub-audible
above 103.5 Hz, it would magically analyze the steady tone frequency and
subtract it from the big speaker output. On my scanner, “basso profundo”
dispatchers now had the same characteristic as a tenor, minimizing
speaker rumble.
Soon, SGC was joined by other radio manufacturers employing an imported
European Digital Signal Processing (DSP) chip that would perform near
magic on audio signals coming out of your radio system.
The DSP would far outshine my analog high-pass and low-pass adjustable
circuits in my earlier powered speaker system. With DSP filtering, broad
analog response curves turn into steep digital walls for precise noise
attack and specific frequency response.
Here’s How It Works

The audio out of your radio’s external
speaker jack first enters the DSP speaker’s analog-to-digital (A/D)
converter, then goes to the DSP ROM. It then goes out the processor’s
RAM to the digital-to-analog (D/A) converter, then to a headphone or
speaker jack or its own built-in speaker. Inside the DSP chip is a
very-high-speed microprocessor that performs a routine called Multiply
And Accumulate (MAC) in just one clock cycle. In most of the newer DSP
speaker systems, all the software programming is automatic, leaving you
with only a DSP level adjustment.
As analog audio enters the analog-to-digital stage inside the chip, a
sample and hold circuit may sample both amplitude and specific frequency
in time, executing millions of audio “slices” that are converted into
binary numbers. While audio CD players must execute high sampling
frequencies, human speech is much easier to quantify then a rock band!

“What’s with this ‘REACT Month?’ you may ask.
Well, it arrives annually in May, just as people begin to think about
travel for Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, weekend jaunts, and summer
vacations. In the excitement of making plans, REACT Month reminds us of
our need to plan for safety.

REACT Teams across the nation and around the
world will host safety displays in public places and provide speakers on
safety topics to community groups. Their goal is to help radio
enthusiasts get the best from their radios in an emergency by learning
correct distress call procedure.

Other REACT Teams will conduct neighborhood
SOS Drills to help residents prepare for severe weather outbreaks or
similar local emergencies.

REACT Month is also a time for Teams to
celebrate the achievements of their volunteers. REACTers quickly realize
their need for on-going training in order to be of maximum service to
those in distress. Likewise, to assist local authorities effectively
when needed, REACT personnel need to be familiar with the requirements
of those agencies. During REACT Month REACT Teams will often recognize
those who have helped train their members over the past year, too.

The Points of Light Foundation, established by
former president George W. Bush, recently honoured two REACT members for
their contributions. As is often the case, their community service
extends beyond REACT. Each has received letters of congratulations from
both the current President Bush and the former President Bush.
Sue Currie of Louisville Metro REACT (Kentucky) was one of the honorees.
In addition to her REACT efforts, Sue serves with the Red Cross and the
United Way. She was honored by the Red Cross with its Clara Barton Award
in 2007.

Bill Kofron, Colleton County REACT (South
Carolina) is another honoree. Bill rides with the Blue Knights law
enforcement motorcycle club in one of his “other lives.” He also serves
as chaplain to a VA hospital and the Fraternal Order of Police. He, too,
helps the Red Cross as well as the Heart Association and other groups in
addition to his REACT duties. He was named REACTer of the Year for 2007
by the South Carolina REACT Council.

Neil Jackman, REACT Nicholson (Mississippi),
was recognized by REACT International, Inc., upon becoming only the
second REACT volunteer so far to successfully complete the rigorous
requirements of a REACT Certified Emergency Communicator. Each candidate
must complete an advanced, in-depth REACT course in emergency
communications. A candidate must then be evaluated during a real
incident or major exercise in order to qualify for certification.

In other news, Tom Currie, Training Chairman
for REACT International, Inc., has been appointed by the National
Registry of Certified Emergency Communications Volunteers (NRCEV) to its
Certification Board. Currie has been an amateur radio and CB operator
for 30 years. He serves with Louisville Metro REACT and has held various
offices with his Team and the Kentucky REACT Council. He has also
represented REACT on the Kentucky Volunteer Organizations Active in
Disasters (KyVOAD).

It’s often said a man is only as good as his
tools. I think this is a wise adage, and I’m a sucker when it comes to
buying the best test equipment I can afford! I love to experiment, and I
enjoy dabbling in both vintage and modern electronic communications
equipment. I also like to design and homebrew my own ham equipment. My
work is only as good as my education and the equipment that backs that
up. Both reinforce each other.

Fortunately, we live in good times. I am not a
rich man, but there’s so much high-end lab-quality test equipment from
industry and government sources being dumped on the surplus market. And
as the supply often greatly exceeds the demand, the prices on desirable
goodies frequently drop within reach of the meager assets in my very
thin wallet.

There are some extreme bargains to be had! For
instance, signal generators that cost tens of thousands of dollars 20 or
30 years ago are now available for a few hundred dollars. But the asking
prices can vary greatly depending on where and how you shop. The best
bargains are found at the bigger, well-attended ham fleamarkets. For
example, if you can make the yearly pilgrimage to the Mecca of ham radio
gatherings, the Dayton Hamvention, you’ll find deals galore in the large
outdoor fleamarket. Remember few vendors want to haul all of that
equipment back home! On the other hand, dealing on Internet auction
sites means buying sight unseen, from professional resellers, and you’ll
be bidding against a worldwide market to boot!

We’ve discussed RF signal generator basics in
past columns. We’ve shown how to improve the utility of the Heath SG-8
signal generator, a basic low-cost instrument that was marketed to meet
the needs of the most frugal radio enthusiast. Stepping up another notch
in quality would encompass signal generators marketed for the radio and
TV service industry. A brief list of manufacturers that catered to those
markets would include familiar brands like Hickok, Simpson, Heath, Eico,
RCA, and Precision. Many of these early generators are functional and in
daily use to this day.

Based on the positive feedback from our past
musings on restoring and using shop test equipment I think this might be
a good time to delve further into the mysterious realm of signal
generators. This column will need to be continued in a future issue, as
there’s a lot of material to cover—but if you stay with me I promise
you’ll learn a lot about using signal generators and how to make useful
and accurate RF measurements!

Unfortunately, service shop-grade signal
generators have limitations. While the output level is adjustable, the
levels are relative and not calibrated. The modulation level might be
adjustable, but the percentage of modulation isn’t known. The dials are
analog, and the precision and scale accuracy are often less than what is
needed. Precision means the degree to which the dial resolves your
ability to set the generator to an exact frequency; for example, it’s
possible to set the dial to the closest 10ths of kHz or kHz. Accuracy
means that the frequency you set the generator dial to is also the exact
frequency the generator is generating!

When Do You Need A Lab-Quality Generator?

Ready access to a good, professional lab-grade
signal generator is a must for the serious radio aficionado—the type of
experimenter who actively builds, modifies, and designs his own
receivers, or who’s intent on getting the most performance from his
equipment.

How often have you wondered if a recent
alignment or the replacing of weak tubes measurably improved a
receiver’s sensitivity? Or whether an attempt to “soup up” a vintage
communications receiver by replacing the 6SK7 RF stage with a hotter
6SG7 really did any good? In theory a 6SG7 tube has a better noise
figure and more to gain to overcome the noisy mixer stage. Is the
sensitivity improved, or did the changes make the radio worse! And what
did you give up in exchange? Is the dynamic range compromised, meaning
the radio is now more prone to overload? These questions can be answered
if you have the proper test equipment, and if you know how to use it!

As dutifully reported in this column some
time ago, back in April 2007, the U.S. Coast Guard asked for public
comment on the need for its HF high-seas weather voice, fax, and NAVTEX
broadcasting services. The idea of seeing these services discontinued
had originally struck me as potentially dangerous, especially for those
smaller commercial operators who aren’t in a financial position to equip
their vessels with expensive satellite equipment. Nevertheless, I
offered no opinion in this space other than to encourage persons
concerned to submit comments, so that the Coast Guard could weigh the
need for its services against the cost of maintaining or replacing the
infrastructure necessary to provide those services, much of which,
according to the Coast Guard, has exceeded its reasonable life
expectancy.

It occurred to me this month that since the
official public comment period had long since ended (the comment period
officially closed in August 2007), that it was time to revisit this
subject and see what the public’s comments were. I did, in fact, do
this, locating the actual text of the public comments on the Internet
and reading through dozens submitted by people ranging from operators of
small pleasure craft to captains and executives of large commercial
operations. I wasn’t surprised when it turned out that the vast majority
of comments were in favor of the USCG retaining its HF weather
information services.

Armed with that, I was all set to write a
column this month presenting these facts and urging the Coast Guard to
continue to do its duty in helping to protect the safety of vessels, not
only on the high seas but on America’s territorial waterways as well.

Then, the strangest thing happened…an agency
of the government decided on its own to do the right thing! After
analyzing the public’s response, the Coast Guard concluded that it was
necessary to continue to provide these services and issued a report on
its study of the situation, which you can find on the Internet using the
link on the page at the following URL:

This is a lengthy PDF document, but the
report’s conclusion is what matters. Quoth the Coast Guard: “The
responding public collectively believes that the USCG HF broadcasts are
essential to their safety. There is no viable alternative to the USCG HF
broadcasts because present alternatives are perceived by the public to
be out of financial reach. Also, marine weather forecasts available
through these alternative sources may not guarantee the same level of
accuracy, timeliness, and/or sufficiency as provided by the USCG HF
broadcasts.”

The infrastructure in question—that is, the
Coast Guard’s total HF infrastructure, consisting of 123
Rockwell-Collins HF80 and Harris RF-755 10-kW transmitters—has reached
the end of its useful life because repair parts are ever harder to find
and ever more expensive to purchase as these transmitters get older. We
will undoubtedly see all but the most critical of the Coast Guard’s HF
services discontinued, since the USCG does not have funding to replace
all these transmitters.

However, the transmitters used for the HF
weather broadcasts—a total of 20 Coast Guard transmitters along with
three Navy transmitters on Guam that are used to broadcast HF weather
fax, voice, and text (SITOR) forecasts to mariners for the areas shown
in the accompanying Figure—will be replaced so that these services can
be continued. These transmitters cost about $200,000 a pop with
installation, according to the Coast Guard, bringing the bill for
replacing the transmitters used in providing these services to a total
of around $4 million.

It’s coming up on two years since I last saw
Norm. Back when we worked together, we saw each other five days a week
and at least one day on the weekend. I can’t say that I miss working on
“the bus,”* with him, but I do miss having Norm near enough for those
casual visits. For the last 14 years or so, we’re lucky to see each
other once a year, and then it’s always been for too short a time.

I do get to daydreaming about some of our
escapades. I know I’ve written about most of them here. Not all of them,
though. Discretion being the better part of avoiding lawsuits, staying
out of jail and all that.

I don’t believe that Norm and I ever spent a
day of relaxation—something that good friends usually do together. Every
time we went to a hamfest we were working, and were lucky to get a few
minutes on our own to run through the flea markets to look for
treasures. Even the great Dayton Hamvention found us scrambling to
squeeze just a half hour roaming through the flea market during all
those days spent there. We did have the advantage of being able to ship
our treasures home in the “company truck”—something the folks who flew
in and out couldn’t do (imagine dragging a seven-hundred pound
transmitter to the baggage check-in at Dayton).

I remember using Norm’s chainsaw to clear
away what seemed like an acre of undergrowth to make way for his guy
wires at a tower-raising one cold Saturday morning. His saw was the only
one I’ve ever handled which squirted gasoline onto the user at a faster
rate than it used it to cut wood. I’m so thankful that no one in that
crowd smoked. Moving his “Eisenhower” transmitter into his apartment
probably caused me to have my hernia repaired a year or so earlier than
I otherwise would have—and a word to the wise: A kW AM transmitter does
not make for good neighbors in an apartment building. Of course, a
concealed antenna in the attic of an apartment building is not
recommended, either.

Installing that antenna during several lunch
hours had us crawling through a trapdoor in a common hallway (while
wearing jackets and ties, because we had come from work), and when a
neighboring tenant wondered what kind of communication gear we were
installing in the ceiling of the complex, I still wish Norm hadn’t said,
“FBI, ma’am—nothing to worry about.”

And speaking of the FBI—something I’d like
to forget—there was the night that Norm called me and told me he had
some horrible guilt about something he’d done and asked me to come over
right away, which I did.

When I got there, he looked as if he’d just
come from the shower. He showed me the label on the back of a bottle of
flea shampoo for dogs. I read it and said, “Yeah?”
“The bottom, old man. Read the bottom.”

I read: “Warning. Use of this product in a
manner inconsistent with its labeling is a violation of federal law.
Yeah?”

“I’m gonna call the FBI,” he said.

“For what?

“I got fleas from the dog and I used it on
my hair. Then I read the label. I’m just sick about this,” he said.

“Norm,” I said. “You’re gonna call the duty
desk at a district FBI office and tell them you want to confess and
they’re gonna trace your call and send the local police here to surround
the place before you can tell them you’re an illegal shampooer! We could
be killed! If you don’t remember the last two times you’ve been in
trouble with the law, and the difficulty you had explaining your way out
of a perfectly honest situation, imagine how it’s gonna go when they get
you for some charge of wasting their time with a phony confession about
dog shampoo!”